The invention relates to conventional mailboxes which are usually mounted on a post beside the road by homeowners or mailbox addressees who live in houses located away from but within sight of the roadside mailbox.
In order to alert the homeowner or addressee of the arrival of mail delivered to the box, numerous devices and attachments to the mailbox have been proposed, very few of which have appeared on the market. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,551,915; 2,812,130: 2,874,896; 4,202,486: and 4,390,122.
It is my opinion that the lack of public acceptance of prior mailbox alert devices lies in their failure to provide a simple, reliable device at a low price and which can be easily installed by the homeowner himself.
I have invented a simple, reliable, easily installed and operated mailbox alert assembly which has only one moving part and should last as long as the mailbox itself.
Briefly stated, my mailbox alert assembly includes a weather-proof flag on the upper end of a flag pole or shaft. The flag pole's lower end is mounted on the side of a cylindrical spool which is rotatably journalled within a housing affixed to the side wall of the mailbox. A coiled spring is wound around the spool and the base of the flag pole so that when the flag pole is in a vertical position with the flag visible over the top of the mailbox, the spring is not under tension but when the flag pole is pushed down into the horizontal position along side the wall of the mailbox, it is under tension.
My mail alert assembly includes a simple inverted U-shaped keeper mounted on the door of the mailbox and designed to receive the uppermost end of the flag pole and thus keep the flag pole under tension in its horizontal position until the door is open. When the mailbox door is opened by the mailman to deposit mail in the box, the keeper is pulled out of engagement with the flag pole, which then, driven by the spring under tension, pivots into its vertical position.